About the Book

Inspirational, practical, and easy to use, this book was created with the aim of conveying the awesome diversity and beauty of California's native plants and demonstrating how they can be brought into ecologically sound, attractive, workable, and artful gardens. Structured around major California plant communities—bluffs, redwoods, the Channel Islands, coastal scrub, grasslands, deserts, oak woodlands, mixed evergreen woodlands, riparian, chaparral, mountain meadows, and wetlands—the book's twelve chapters each include sample plans for a native garden design accompanied by original drawings, color photographs, a plant list, tips on successful gardening with individual species, and more. Both residential and professional gardeners will learn the benefits of going native with gardens that require less water and fewer fertilizers, attract wildlife, engage the senses, create a sense of place, and, at the same time, preserve our rich natural heritage.

About the Author

Glenn Keator, a California plant specialist, is author of Introduction to Trees of the San Francisco Bay Area (UC Press), The Life of an Oak, Plants of the East Bay Parks, and Complete Garden Guide to the Native Perennials of California. Alrie Middlebrook is the founder and president of Middlebrook Gardens in San Jose, California, a design company that specializes in California native gardens. She is author of Eating California. They have been hiking California and teaching classes on California native plants for thirteen years.

Reviews

“This excellent book is a must-read for anyone interested in cultivating native plants and working them into a landscape plan. There are plenty of color photos of sample gardens and close-ups of native plants the authors recommend.”—Robert Walch Salinas Californian

“This book not only tells you all about hundreds of these beautiful plants but -- most important -- how and where to deploy them to great effect.”—San Jose Mercury News

“A beautiful and very informative book.”—Robert Francis Aptos Times

“Here’s a beautiful and very informative book that any gardener who lives in California will love reading.”—Robert Walch Bookloons.com

“A worthy addition to the genre, providing another perspective on gardening with natives. . . . This is much more than the how-to book its title suggests. . . . Gardeners, native plant lovers, and novices curious about native plant horticulture can all enjoy and learn from this book.”—Bay Nature

“This terrific new book that not only tells you all about hundreds of these beautiful plants but —most important — how and where to deploy them to great effect.”—Oakland Tribune

“Visionary . . . an ambitious and complex book that offers, in a variety of ways, a strong rationale for using natural vegetation communities as models for designing California native gardens.”—Pacific Horticulture

“Keator is one of our native plant gurus and the author of several bibles on California gardening.”—Petaluma Argus-Courier

“Just looking at the photographs of the more than 600 native species recommended for gardeners will inspire a person.”—Placerville Mountain Democrat

“Gorgeous”—San Bernardino Sun

“When you’ve had a taste of California native plants and want more, you’ll want the new book by Glenn Keator and Alrie Middlebrook.”—Ron Sullivan, Joe Eaton San Francisco Chronicle

"An excellent how-to book on California native plant landscaping . . . with plans, photographs, and plant lists which are sure to fire the imagination of any gardener."—Arvind Kumar, California Native Plant Society